Windows 10 IoTCore, as implemented on the Raspberry Pi 2 (RPI2) initially came with no WiFi or Bluetooth (BT) connectivity. These were then added as USB dongles but with a limited listed of hardware that worked. RPI3 has built in WiFi and BT. What is the state of play with IoTCore connectivity with the RPI now? Are there any issues?

My Azure watering system has been running for almost seven month now, after a long period of analysis I got all elements stable early january 2018.
The Azure data recorded since then shows the following behavior:

We can draw some conclusions from this graph:
1 - Plants don't need much water in winter...
2 - Humidity measurement is definitely correlated to Temperature (red pot got frozen in march)
3 - Each pot has a specific behavior, and therefore needs a special algorithm

It is now worth pushing this data to Azure Machine Learning to draw the watering laws - before summer !!

As part of a series of articles on a set of projects targeted at using a Windows Surface device as the presentation layer for a RPI or Arduino device, this article views the apps as state machines and documents the app states coupling through message passing between them.

In the previous articles in this series, a UWP app was developed as an array of XAML buttons that acts as the UI for an app running on a remote embedded or IoT device. Once connected the remote app sends a configuration for the UI as a Json string. Connectivity between the UWP and remote apps over Bluetooth and USB Serial has been covered. In this article connectivity over network sockets is covered. The article includes 101 on TCPIP Network Sockets for UWP and Arduino.

I ordered a bunch of ESP8266 modules in November and I have been developing applications since then with the available environments:
1 - Arduino IDE
2 - MicroPython
3 - Native SDK
Arduino IDE is great because it allowed me to re-use the code I wrote to access Azure through REST for my Azure Watering System.
Having both WiFi and a low power MCU I decided to build a Wireless station to monitor Humidity and Temperature and report to Azure.
Several SSIDs may be included in the program, therefore this monitoring device may be used inside and in the surroundings of my home - connected through home WiFi, or anywhere if I connect through my 3G+ phone.
The actual challenge for a Wireless station is to be REALLY wireless, this means running on battery. I used a 400MAh 1S LiPo I had in stock to see how long it would run between recharge.
The actual setup is as follows:
This includes more than the ESP8266 and DHT11 shield (in the back) and Battery (in front),
1 - The display and resistors are used to measu ...

This article reworks the previous few articles that use BT Serial and the connectivity so that USB virtual serial is used for communication. It covers in detail USB Serial connectivity between a UWP app and an Arduino devices as well as with a Windows 10 IoT-Core device (eg RPI).

The second article in this series covered development of a BT enabled Arduino Sketch that send its required UI to the UWP app as two json text strings. Also when the app is configured, the UWP app can send the UI key presses as encoded characters. This article covers how to implement same as a Windows 10 IoT-Core app that can run on a RPI.

The previous article in this series covered implementing an Arduino device as the remote app that send the UI configuration at start up to the UWP app so tha the UWP app can configure the UI for it as an array of buttons. The Arduino device executes a state machine. The article covers the BT connectivity from within the UWP app and the implementation of the UWP apps mirror of the state machine.

In the previous article, issues with and how to connect a Windows 10 system to an Arduino device using the Classic (Generic) Bluetooth Serial (SPP) connectivity was covered in detail. This is so that a UWP app running on a Windows 10 device can act as the UI for an app running on a remote device such as an Arduino or IOT-Core device. The UI a dynamically generated array of buttons with multiline text that when pressed send a code representing the button to the remote app for interpretation. There is also a list box in the UI that can be used to display messages from the remote app. The UI specified in Json is passed via the serial medium from the remote app to the Windows system and used to generate the app’s UI dynamically in XAMl at runtime. This article covers the code to receive the json text from the remote device and how to interpret it within the UWP app as well as how to pass the button code and get the remote app’s text messages.

Windows Embedded Compact 7

The Windows Embedded Compact 7 (Compact 7) getting started series is created to provide simple and easy to follow information to help academic, hobbyist and commercial developers to learn and engage in Compact 7 development.

***This is a series of 9 articles, with additional supplements, that cover the following subjects: